Following the discovery of a suspect package in the stands at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium which resulted in the abandonment of United’s final Premier League fixture with Bournemouth and a mass evacuation Cafe Spike can confirm that a bomb disposal team have arrived at the scene and are currently dealing with the situation.

With a police helicopter buzzing overhead we can also confirm that a police manhunt is under way after a suspect was spotted by several witnesses loitering in the area where the suspect package was discovered.

Police are keen to speak to a tall man wearing a white shirt, black suit and red and black tie. The suspect is reported to have been carrying some kind of clipboard and to have an unusual face with a high forehead, who according to witnesses spoke with a foreign accent, possibly Belgian or Dutch.

Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the suspect is advised to contact the police.

It was only ever really a matter of time but Leicester City are now officially the Premiership Champions after Tottenham blew a two goal lead in a stormy match at Stamford Bridge with the score finishing Chelsea 2 Tottenham Hotspurs 2

So the Leicester fans can finally crack open the champers, tuck into blue fish and chips with a packet of Walker’s Salt n Vinegar for dessert and breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Against all odds, Leicester City – under the stewardship of veteran manager Claudio Ranieri – have won the league and enchanted fans across the country with their cavalier attacking style, and next season we’re all hoping they do us proud in the Champions League.

It’s the first time in years that a mid-level club have landed the Premiership title (Blackburn Rovers being the last) and we can’t possibly praise them enough. What we can also say is that in the past Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest have gone on to land the big one, so go Leicester.

Even though Spurs appeared to lose the plot at Stamford Bridge at times, with some ugly scenes including scuffles and an unsavoury stamping incident on the hand of Cesc Fabregas by Erik Lamela climaxing in a huge bust up in the tunnel, Spurs shouldn’t feel too disappointed. They too have gained legions of admirers by virtue of their attacking style of play and definitely look like a good bet for future success.

So, congratulations to Leicester and commiserations to Spurs.

Just one thing though – only a small thing…

Could somebody please padlock Gary Lineker in a crate and lock it up in a secure warehouse somewhere. He’s going to be fucking insufferable for months after this. The crisp snaffling bastard.

Dean Float, star midfielder for the Brickmakers Arms in the Accrington and District Sunday League defied those who stereotype star footballers as cheating love rats by announcing on Twitter that he is not, nor has ever been, a cheating love rat.

“I’m an accomplished footballer and I’m not and never have been a cheating love rat,” he wrote last night, sparking a Twitter storm with many women angrily saying that all footballers are cheating love rats and there’s just no escaping it. FACT.

Mr Float continued to deny that he was a love rat and got involved in several bad tempered exchanges with his followers.

“I think I won the argument in the end,” Mr Float said. “When I announced that I couldn’t possibly be a cheating love rat because so far I’ve never had a girlfriend. I don’t think it’s because I’m spectacularly ugly to look at or anything like that; it probably has more to do with me using all my spare time either playing football, training, or playing GTA on the X-Box.”

Beleaguered and embattled Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho today denied that he is the man behind the government crackdown on tax credits during a press conference at Stamford Bridge.

“I’ve already admitted that I had a pop at the club doctor and that results so far this season have been disappointing,” Mourinho announced. “But these cuts in tax credits are not my doing. I had no part in that. Everybody knows that we must reduce the deficit and create a high wage low welfare economy. It’s common sense. But it isn’t me. You should talk to Dave and Gideon about that.”

Mourinho was then asked if perhaps Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger could in some way have been instrumental in the tax credit strategy but he appeared to shrug off the question, saying that the journalist who posed the question should direct his question to Mr Wenger.

When asked if John Terry would be included in the team for the upcoming Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev, Mourinho said, “Of course I know poor people. I see them in my office all the time and help them with their problems but let me be perfectly clear – we must reduce the deficit and it’s vital that we bomb Syria because the Russians are making our efforts look a bit pedestrian and we can’t be having that.”

In scenes which brought to mind the classic line “Don’t tell him Pike!” it was a strange sight, seeing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn walking down the road and studiously ignoring questions fired at him by Sky News reporters, before hopping into a car and clearing off. We can’t imagine why anybody in their right mind wouldn’t want to talk to Sky News. It’s not as if they’re biased or anything, or like they’ve been guilty of phone hacking…hang on…roll that back. We’ve just spotted the Murdoch connection – don’t worry, it’s Monday and we haven’t woken up properly yet.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were a bit concerned that Mr Corbyn wouldn’t talk to Café Spike either, so we decided to give him a call on a mobile number that we paid thirty quid for off a contact down the pub.

When we called the number, somebody who sounded a bit like Jeremy Corbyn answered, so we asked him why he’d maintained a stony silence when questioned by Sky News.

“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” the person on the end of the line told us.

Concerned, we asked if Mr Corbyn was still talking to Café Spike, and he said he was, although he admitted he’d never heard of us. “What do you do?” he asked.

“I did,” Mr Corbyn said. “Not much of a game first half but it livened up a bit in the second. United murdered them really, but the highlight for me was Christian Benteke’s spectacular overhead kick. That was a peach of a goal and he executed it to perfection.”

“What about the boy Martial’s goal? And the Blind set piece goal? And the Ander Herrera penalty – the first penalty he’s ever taken as a pro?” we asked Mr Corbyn.

“They were good, and on any other day Martial’s effort would have been goal of the month, but I still think Benteke’s was better.”

“Jeremy,” we asked in no small degree of exasperation. “Are you a fucking closet Loonypool fan or what?”

“Are you sure you aren’t one of those wankers from Sky News?” Mr Corbyn asked, suddenly adopting a menacing tone.

At which point we made our excuses and hung up.

Our Editor in Chief, Martin Shuttlecock had this to say: “I thought Jeremy Corbyn was a breath of fresh air in British politics, a man with a vision who is taking the Labour party back to its traditional roots. The thought of him being a closet Scouser is quite frankly devastating. I’m crushed I am. That’s if it really was him. Somebody tell me it’s just an elaborate hoax.”

*Jeremy Corbyn’s office (allegedly) confirmed that Mr Corbyn won’t be speaking to Jeremy Clarkson any time soon either. Even though his name is Jeremy too.

Following an illustrious career at the highest level of the game, Liverpool and England skipper Steven Gerrard played his final game for his home town club today at Anfield in a contest with south London giants Crystal Palace. Speaking to the media before the game, Gerrard vowed that he’d do his best not to cry like a little baby, but said he couldn’t make any promises.

Sadly for Stevie, Palace failed to read the script, and after falling behind to a Lallana strike they rallied with goals from Puncheon, Zaha and Murray to win 3-1, leaving Stevie G as a loser again, although he did whack a free kick miles over the bar and was largely ineffective.

Liverpool 1 Crystal Palace 3

Blah blah.

Born in Whiston, Merseyside, Gerrard lost the first battle of his life, when despite the whole family pulling together as one, he failed in his bid to overcome a speech impediment, known in medical circles as a Scouse accent. Despite the crushing disappointment the young Gerrard went on to enjoy a successful career, becoming globally respected for his unswerving ability to lose his footing at the most inopportune moments.

Career Highlights

Gerrard impressed battlefield commanders at the battle of Waterloo in Belgium in 1815, where despite a niggling hamstring injury he fearlessly brought down at least a dozen of Napoleon’s finest, earning him a high five and a triumphant, “Yes! Let’s do it!” from the Duke of Wellington.

In 1945 whilst on loan to Moscow Dynamo Gerrard was instrumental in storming the Reichstag in Berlin, bringing about the end of the war in Europe. “It was a nice interlude like, yer know,” he said a few weeks later. “It gave us a birruva break from developin’ vaccines an’ working on rocket propulsion, an learnin’ long words like ‘interlude’ an’ stuff like dat. Lar.”

During the close season in 1953, Gerrard packed his bags and became the unsung hero of the 1953 Everest expedition, giving Hillary and Tenzing a leg up the Hillary Step during the first successful summit attempt on the world’s highest mountain. “I kept Ed and the Sherpas’ spirits up by doing Cilla Black impressions,” Gerrard chuckled in a recent interview with Gary Lineker on Match Of The Day 3 – The Director’s Cut.

The highlights of Gerrard’s football career occurred in Istanbul, Turkey in the Champions League final against AC Milan in 2005, where Liverpool came back from a 0-3 half time deficit to finish 3-3 before going on to win the coveted trophy for the fifth time by way of a penalty shoot-out, and in scoring a dramatic hat-trick in South Africa in the dying minutes of the 2010 World Cup final against the Germans in a particularly vivid dream he once had.

“That was the best feeling ever,” he later said. “It was even better than when me and Neil done the moon landing in 69 and when I done the first heart transplant operation. They were pretty cool like, but I never got to run around wid a trophy doin’ stuff like dat.”

Tribute

“There’s no doubt among those in the game that Steven is one of the best ever, a true legend,” fierce rival Ryan Giggs of Manchester United said. “It’s just a shame he never won the Premier League in all those years of trying. He can borrow one of my medals if he wants – I’ve got loads of ’em cluttering the gaff up.”

Martin Shuttlecock.

*Nobody was left physically or emotionally traumatised during the preparation of this article.

All the other parties are ripe for a good lampooning, but that certainly is not the case with the Liberal Democrats, according to former Arsenal and England goalkeeper David Seaman who described the Lib Dems as, “beyond satire.”

“The Lib Dems are just dull,” Seaman’s former teammate Lee Dixon grumbled. “UKIP are a non-stop joke, Cameron’s ripe for the picking, Miliband is just an arse and the smaller parties are all a bit unhinged. It’s just the Lib Dems really. There’s nothing for even the most determined satirist to get stuck into.”

“I’m in complete agreement I’m afraid,” said former James Bond actor Sean Connery. “I wish he’d do something exciting for once, like blowing something up or a parachute jump, or climb up to the top of the Shard without any safety equipment, but to be honest I can’t see that happening anytime soon.”

A spokesperson for the Lib Dems denied that Mr Clegg is a boring fart and revealed that the party had some exciting plans in place for their leader in the run-up to the General Election.

“We’ll probably film an interview in a pub or something,” the spokesperson added.

It’s Superbowl Sunday in the United States, and we all know what that means. Basically it involves millions of overweight macho men parking their ample arses on the couch and quaffing endless quantities of beer as they become transfixed by the spectacle of a bunch of big dumb galoots running around in a field for a bit chasing an egg shaped ‘ball’ and then battering their hapless spouses if their chosen team fails to win.

And all in full body armour.

Occasionally the play even interrupts the endless stream of advertisements, but to be fair, the event has garnered quite a reputation for its half time spectacular ‘shows’ – which usually feature some faded old music business has-been and a few fireworks.

Proper Football Fans Don’t Don’t Eat Double Cheeseburgers

This kind of thing grips America, and whips the excitement up to fever pitch, but here in Britain the vast majority of us don’t give a toss. Most of us think it’s a crap game, and not worthy of the ‘Football’ tag; it’s more like catch, in the same way that baseball is sneered at for being like rounders. Anyway, the thing is that we don’t give a toss about your Superbowl, and here are ten reasons why:

1 – Bowls are for fruit, cornflakes and porridge. There’s nothing super about bowls – they’re just bowls that you can put crap in to keep the place tidy. Crap like salad, punch, rice and custard. Bowls are just bowls.

2 – The whole thing is a con. During a touchdown the ball doesn’t have to be touched down. A ‘play’ isn’t a play at all – as in a theatrical production – it’s just when somebody lobs the ‘ball’ and somebody catches it before falling over. Then it’s done. Not a play. A ‘Hail Mary’ isn’t a prayer – it’s when the bloke who catches the ball throws it as high and as far as he can because he can’t think of anything else to do.

3 – It comes on our TV in the early hours of the morning, so it isn’t worth the effort to stay awake. It would bore most Brits to sleep if they played at three o’ clock on a Saturday afternoon, our time, let alone in the wee small hours.

4 – All the teams have really stupid names. Giants, Jets, Cowboys, Vikings, Packers, Patriots, Seahawks, Cardinals, Lions, Saints, Raiders – what do those names have to do with football of any description? None. Over here we call our teams sensible names, traditional names like City, United, County and Celtic. If we had an FA Cup Final between, say, Leicester Masai Warriors and Nottingham Soldiers Of Fortune we’d probably rip it all up and start again. Daft names – daft game.

5 – It’s crap. Nobody else in the world is interested in your stupid game. We have our own football, which everybody in the world loves because it’s more skilful, faster paced and a great deal more intelligent than yours. Also, our footballers go the whole 90 minutes, not seven seconds before they need a rest and a chug on an oxygen cylinder. Superbowl? I’ve had more fun watching darts down the pub.

6 – You Americans keep telling us that football is a man’s game, and that our football is a sissy sport. Try telling that to Roy Keane, Wayne Rooney or Vinny Jones – they’d punch your bastard lights out. Try telling Manchester City’s legendary goalkeeper Bert Trautman that – he played on in a cup final with a broken neck, or Stuart Pierce who completed an England game soaked in two pints of his own blood from a head wound. People get injured all the time in football, and most play on – unless the injury is something trivial like a shattered leg, a busted up skull or a snapped ligament.

7 – We Brits are more inclined to spend our time watching something civilised – like Antiques Roadshow, or Downton Abbey.

8 – One thing which we will concede is that, as in your bastardised version of football, there is cheating. Our footballers dive without being brought down in order to try to win a penalty, and gambling syndicates have been known to attempt to influence games, but to the best of our knowledge, never in the history of our beautiful game has anyone EVER been accused of tampering with their balls. That would be ungentlemanly and exceedingly bad form.

9 – If the Superbowl is so good, how come you’ve been trying for years to flog it to the world and how many times does the world have to tell you that we’re not remotely interested before you stop? We don’t give a fig who wins your ‘world’ championship. It’s a crap game. Get over it, and yourselves.

10 – We hear about fans at American football games having barbecues in the car park and drinking beer together. We see them in the stands, guzzling down hotdogs and cheeseburgers and politely applauding. Where’s the fun in that? We invented a phenomenon called ‘hooliganism’ which basically involves rival fans trying to beat the crap out of one another in the stands, the car parks, and the streets surrounding the stadium. It’s a classic British combination – a few pints, football and a bloody good fight. You’ll never be able to compete with that.

In summary, we aren’t anti-American here at the Café – we quite like most of you (even one or two of the Republicans, in spite of their strange political views) it’s just that we have been in love – as has the rest of the planet – with the beautiful game, and we tend to get defensive when Americans (and it only is Americans) try to put their game on some higher plane than ours. It isn’t a better game. It’s bloody rubbish. Message over.

Welcome aboard our time machine. Today we’ll be taking you back 50 years to 1965, to a long ago world which some people in 2015 appear to yearn to inhabit, a world free of those pesky immigrants, free of Political Correctness, a world where everybody knew their neighbours, a world free of benefit scroungers and crime, a friendlier place with a caring society.

Getting out of bed in 1965 was slightly more difficult than it is today. The vast majority of dwellings in 1965 didn’t have central heating, or duvets. You slept in a bed covered in blankets, and you didn’t hang your coat up – you put it on the bed for extra warmth. Having braved the cold, people washed in cold water – quickly. Then the man of the house would light a fire in the grate, using scrunched up balls of newspapers to light firewood, adding coal when the fire got hot enough. Sometimes the fire would sputter and die; in which case you’d have to start over again.

The man of the house would then make a pot of tea and have a rudimentary breakfast, usually toast and jam, or if pressed for time bread and jam. Then the man would set off for work. Notice that the man doesn’t have a car. Very few people did back then. The man goes out into the pre-dawn darkness and walks down the street to the corner shop, where he buys a daily newspaper, a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and a box of matches. Then he goes to the bus stop and waits. The bus conductor wears extra jumpers, a scarf and fingerless gloves because it’s winter and it’s freezing cold on the bus because the boarding/alighting point of the bus is at the back and open to the elements. Most people on the crowded bus are smoking, because in 1965 a lot of people smoked. The passengers shiver with the cold and it isn’t unusual to see steam rising from their clothing.

The man of the house gets off the bus and goes to a huge factory, where he punches his clock card as evidence that he’s arrived on time for work. Then he goes to a machine and gets cracking because it’s cold in the factory too. He runs exactly 2,500 component parts through the machine before passing them on to the next work station. He gets a tea break and a lunch break during the course of his working day – ten minutes and thirty minutes respectively. The man does the same 2,500 parts every day, week in, week out, year in, year out.

Back at the house the man’s wife is getting her two kids ready for school. She makes them a hearty breakfast of tea and porridge, followed by bread and jam. The kids will get a small bottle of milk at school, and a dinner which costs a shilling a day. The kids’ uniforms are looking a bit worn and the little boy’s shoes have holes in them. The mother puts newspaper in the boy’s shoes to try to keep the wet out. She’s saving up for new school clothes for the kids, but it’ll be a couple of weeks more before she’s saved enough.

The kids walk the mile to school, whatever the weather. Sometimes the mother walks with them, but they don’t really like her doing so because they don’t want to be seen as mollycoddled. When the kids go alone she instructs them to stick together, to take care crossing the roads and not to speak to strangers. They’re good kids but she worries about them – and she’s right to. 1965 was no safer for kids than 2015. Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were arrested in 1965 for abducting, torturing and murdering children before dumping their bodies on Saddleworth Moor.

The mother has her own breakfast; tea, egg and bacon on toast. She relaxes with a cigarette for a few minutes. Then she’ll do the laundry and clean the house. Having done that, she’ll walk to the local shops to buy something for the evening meal. There aren’t any supermarkets in 1965, so the mother has to walk to the shops daily in order to buy bread, milk, potatoes, vegetables and a small quantity of meat or fish. There are no credit or debit cards, and there aren’t any cashpoints so the mother has to balance her budget, ensuring she has enough cash for the family’s daily needs and a little to put in the bank for rainy day moments. Her husband’s payday is a weekly blessing. His wages are paid every Thursday, in cash, in an envelope with a pay slip. The mother worries that the company wages van will be robbed by thieves with guns and pick-axe handles, which happens frequently. If it happens to her husband’s employer his wages will be delayed by at least a day, and that can be a harsh blow to those on a tight budget. It hasn’t happened so far, but it’s a common occurrence in the area where the family live.

Meanwhile the husband is feeling uncomfortable at work. One of his workmates has been carpeted by the boss for failing to meet his work targets for two consecutive days, and the man has asked his union rep to speak on his behalf. The union rep explains to the boss that the man has been an employee for nine years at the firm with a previously flawless record regarding both his work output, timekeeping and attendance. He explains to the boss that the worker isn’t feeling well and assures the boss that the man will be back up to speed within a day or two. The boss relents, and says he’ll give the worker a week to improve or he’ll be shown the door. Everybody is relieved. Union policy dictates than any worker subjected to unfair treatment will receive full union backing. The worst possible scenario could be a strike, and that’s the last thing the men want. They can’t afford to strike.

As the man worries whilst operating his machine, his wife walks to the shops. She stops to chat with familiar faces, before getting essential supplies. For the evening meal she buys sausages from the butcher and a tin of baked beans from the corner shop. Sausage, mash and beans for tea. She also buys a tin of pilchards – pilchards on toast for supper.

It’s been a long day for the man, but he finally clocks out at five and takes the bus home. The Beatles are playing on the transistor radio. The sound quality is poor, but despite that the Beatles sound great. The kids are out playing in the street, the mother is preparing the tea, and the man eases back in his armchair and reads the newspaper. There are no computers in 1965, no iPhones, and only two TV channels. The man puts more coal on the fire and he chats with his wife, discussing what they’ve done that day.

After tea they bring up the possibility of a summer holiday, when the man has two weeks with pay off work. The children are excited by talk of a week’s stay in a Blackpool guest house, or a camping holiday in Great Yarmouth. In 1965 most people stayed in Britain for their holidays. Some adventurous souls ventured to exotic locations like Spain and France, flying to their destinations, but you had to be relatively well off to afford luxury jaunts like that.

Eventually the children go off to bed and the couple watch TV for an hour. The mother is exhausted and wants an early night. The father asks if it’ll be okay to go down the local pub for an hour to see his mates. The wife smiles and hands him some coins from her purse. Then she kisses him, tells him she loves him and goes off to bed.

The man walks to the pub. He says ‘good evening’ to Mr Hassan who runs a shop on the parade, and breathes deeply of the exotic aroma wafting from the Chinese chippy. All the other shops closed long ago. The man marvels at Mr Hassan’s work ethic – his shop is open from the early morning until late in the evening. The man then enters the public bar where he meets up with his mates.

He stays for an hour and drinks two pints of beer. They talk about football. This is 1965, Sky Sports and ticket allocations for modern stadiums are a long way off in the future. When the men watch their local team they are packed into standing terraces where men pissed where they stood. Next year the World Cup will be coming to England. There’s excitement about the brilliant Brazilian star Pele playing locally – although none of the men have seen him in any more than grainy short black and white clips on TV. The talk quickly turns to politics and Harold Wilson’s Labour government. Opinions are divided.

Eventually the man goes home and climbs wearily into his bed. The fire downstairs has long since spluttered and died. He huddles up close to his sleeping wife for extra warmth. When he breathes his exhalations form little clouds as the temperature plummets once more. As he closes his eyes he hears a dog bark, and the clanging of buffers as the night workers in the railway yards organise the freight trains for the morning. Eventually he falls asleep.

When tomorrow comes, the family will do it all again, and the day after.

Manchester United supporters all over the world have expressed their outrage after a crap so-called sports website has been outed for posting fictitious click-bait stories all over the internet – stories which have no basis whatsoever in reality, and in no way reflect what is actually happening at Manchester United.

One article claimed in the headline that United’s Angel DiMaria wanted away from the club only a week after having signed, which was obviously a load of nonsense. The real story was that DiMaria simply expressed the wish to return to his original club, Rosario Central in his Argentinian homeland at the end of his career.

“It was obviously nonsense,” Café Spike’s Editor In Chief, Martin Shuttlecock said this teatime. “But a few people fell for it.”

It seems that at that point the click-bait tactics (designed to boost online advertising revenue) moved up to a whole new level of deviousness.

“They started posting sensational transfer rumour headlines pertaining to Manchester United players, without actually naming the player in the headline,” Shuttlecock explained. “Then when gullible or really curious fans click on the story there’s no substance to it whatsoever. It’s just garbage. What I call cynical media manipulation. Those conspiracy theorist types should take a leaf out of that site’s book if they want to be heard. Quite frankly – it’s an outrage.”

Did Shuttlecock fall for this cunning ploy? Which website is he referring to?

“I fell for it once,” Shuttlecock said. “I can’t remember the exact name of the site because I blocked it. And then in a drink fuelled orgy of violence I smashed my laptop to smithereens with a claw hammer, set fire to the flammable bits and then lobbed it over my next-door neighbour’s back fence.”

And the moral of this cautionary tale is?

“Dunno,” Shuttlecock said. “I did know at some point but I must have forgotten.”